Health Care Website and Blog

Whether you prefer your news on FOX or NPR, there is no denying that the air is thickening around the subject of health care reform in this country. Arguments favoring this tinker or that tamper satisfy some and enrage others. Regardless of what approach people favor, there is one unifying acknowledgement: It is that some meaningful reform must soon be in place before the current system bankrupts our nation.

Many individual Americans have in fact already tasted from the bitter cup of personal bankruptcy brought on by devastating brushes with the health care system as it exists now. The American Journal of Medicine released study findings this summer that uncovered the extent of medically related causes that lay behind personal bankruptcy filings in 2007. The AJM study authors implemented conservative controls on their work, ensuring a random sample of bankruptcy filers nationwide and followed up with in depth interviews with a significant cross section of participants. This study, a first ever of its kind due to its broad sampling and well defined parameters, revealed that nearly a whopping 62% of these filers indicated medically related expenses as major contributing factors to their debt disaster.

CNN interviewed an author of the study, Steffie Woolhandler, M.D. who made this concluding comment: “If an illness is long enough and expensive enough, private insurance offers very little protection against medical bankruptcy, and that’s the major finding in our study.” A comment coming from the D.C. based nonpartisan Center for Studying Health System Change in response to the American Journal of Medicine’s study held some skepticism about what actually precipitated the bankruptcy filings but did own that medical expenses were a key player, considering that 1 in 5 American families are “unduly strained” by medical bills.

In the 20 year span from 1981 to 2001, there was a major jump in the percentage of families filing for medically related bankruptcy, a rise from 8% to 46%. The earlier numbers may not have accurately reflected the role of medical bills in the bankruptcy filings, because court records were the means through which the statistics were gathered. Court records do not include the origin of debt that was owed to collection agencies, quite possibly obscuring the role of medical bills. Nevertheless, the American Medical Journal’s most recent 2007 figures of nearly 62% medically related bankruptcy, indicate an unprecedented escalation over a 6 year period. Add that trend to what is still the unknown fallout of our economy’s current recession and we may have some even more frightening revelations.

There is often a common misunderstanding about the majority of individuals who must file for bankruptcy; it is that they are society’s shiftless or hapless members. The AMJ study indicates a profile of personal bankruptcy filers that is quite different from this perception. Most debtors in their random sample were middle aged, among the middle class and had gone to college. 75% of filers did have medical insurance at the outset of their health and debt problems. However, they had the norm of coverage gaps such as co-payments, deductibles and uncovered services. This brings up the unavoidable correlation of how 25% of insurance companies nationwide cancel coverage immediately when an individual suffers a disabling illness and another 25% of insurance companies rescind policies within one year.

If “what is good for the middle class is good for America” is a useful measure of social and economic policy in this country, it is plain to see that viable and visionary health care reform is a mandate. With premiums, deductibles, institutional and procedural costs running on an unchecked course, the system will shortly be unsustainable. This year, 2009, the U.S. is predicted to spend an unprecedented 17.6% of its GDP on health care. What is not taken into account on top of this mind-boggling statistic is the hidden economic and societal costs of medically related personal and small business bankruptcies.

Do yourself a favor as a good citizen and read the American Journal of Medicine’s study in full. (You can find it quickly online at amjmed.com, Vol. 122, Issue 8, pp. 741 to 746.) Be informed, do some further fact scouting and let your congress representative and senator know that the average citizen wants and needs access to the quality of health insurance elected officials are privy to.